Recent governmental regulations have prompted development and application of exhaust aftertreatment systems to reduce particulate matter emissions from both on-highway and off-highway machines or vehicles. Exhaust aftertreatment systems typically include an aftertreatment component, such as, for example, a particulate filter. A particulate filter may be a ceramic device that collects particulate matter in the exhaust stream by physical filtration. The collected particulate matter may be continuously or periodically removed from the particulate filter through one of many forms of regeneration, such as thermal regeneration. Other aftertreatment components may include a NOx adsorber, a catalytic converter, or any other known aftertreatment device.
Manufacturers of engines for these on-highway and off-highway machines are required to obtain an emissions certification from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for each of their engines and/or engine families. This certification confirms that an engine, including the exhaust aftertreatment system provided with the engine, complies with the applicable on-highway or off-highway emissions standards and requirements. The compliance may be based on information supplied to the EPA by the manufacturer of the engine and/or aftertreatment system. This may prove problematic, however, for machine assembly plants that assemble different aftertreatment components to different types of engines, especially if two or more of the aftertreatment components have similar mating features. This may also prove problematic for manufacturers that ship an engine separately from an aftertreatment component, such as a particulate filter, for later assembly. In either case, if the aftertreatment component and engine are mismatched, such as by mating the wrong particulate filter to the right engine, the certification that was based on a specific configuration may no longer be accurate.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,792,347 teaches a method of installation-exchange protection of two measuring sensors in a divided catalytic converter system. A circuit is provided for reading in a voltage from each of the two sensors. A diagnostic module compares the voltage characteristics from each sensor to a value stored in memory to determine if each of the sensors is positioned correctly. This reference, however, does not contemplate the electronic identification of a particulate filter assembly and a comparison of that identification to a current engine to ensure proper assembly.
The present disclosure is directed to one or more of the problems set forth above.